My daughter rejected an offer from her dream college because of the costs. I was shocked when she chose a state school instead.
Courtesy of Candy Mickels Mejia
- My daughter was accepted into the University of Chicago, her dream school.
- Once we laid out the costs, she wasn't comfortable with the price tag.
- She decided to reject the offer, and now she's a freshman at the University of Texas.
The trajectory of the college search changed the moment I heard my daughter gasp from her room: She'd been accepted by a highly selective college at the top of her list.
I rushed to her desk to see the message for myself and even asked her to replay it so I could watch the digital confetti scatter down the screen of her laptop. We were both excited and overwhelmed; I was bursting with pride.
Given the prestige of the University of Chicago, I was certain it was where she would end up. I silently started to convince myself I'd be OK with my baby girl moving 1,000 miles away from home.
As exciting as this moment was, the memory of it made it all the more difficult when she eventually rejected their offer of acceptance.
Finding the right fit was more difficult than we thought
There are so many factors to consider when deciding where to apply to college — size, location, cost, and area of study, to name a few. For my daughter, what mattered most was academic reputation, cost, and social life.
After all the applications were in, the tours were done, and acceptances were sent out, her top two choices were the University of Texas at Austin, our state flagship school, and UChicago, the school I was certain she'd pick.
My daughter graduated fourth in her class, so we expected plenty of merit-based scholarship opportunities for her. What we learned was that the availability of scholarships was directly proportional to the college's desirability. In other words, if it's a place lots of students want to attend, there aren't as many merit-based aid opportunities. Of course, my high-achieving student preferred the highly desirable schools.
Lucky for her, we had been preparing for that her whole life. But it wasn't that easy.
Cost became a factor we needed to prioritize
To better understand the financial impact of each choice, my husband created a spreadsheet, comparing the cost of each school to what we had in her college savings account.
This method laid out the information in a way that she couldn't argue with: UChicago, the prestigious school that selected her and made her heart go pitter-patter, was roughly double the cost of the University of Texas.
By including the cost of travel to and from Chicago with the cost of attendance, any possibility of us helping her pay for graduate school in the future was basically eliminated. She wasn't entirely comfortable with that.
Once she was accepted into the University of Texas honors program, there wasn't much left to debate. Being part of that honors program nearly leveled the playing field between UT and UChicago as far as undergrad academics were concerned.
That left cost and social life as the two remaining factors. The cost was pretty clear, thanks to the spreadsheet. Social life? She knew no one attending UChicago, but one of her best friends from high school would be at UT — and needed a roommate.
We had to embrace what was truly the best fit for our student
Once she officially chose the University of Texas and rejected the University of Chicago, I worried that my daughter would regret saying no to a college that was such an honor to be accepted into.
However, once she committed to the University of Texas, she was all-in. Now a college freshman, she's doing well at UT. She's achieving her academic goals, has a circle of friends on whom she can depend, and isn't stressed about her finances.
One thing she hadn't counted on was meeting other students who'd had a similar experience to hers; she's met several people in her honors program who also rejected offers from prestigious colleges.
I'm thankful we took the time to figure out what mattered most in our daughter's college search. I'm even more thankful that she's way less than 1,000 miles from home.